Parks and rec commission backs lighthouse idea

May 11, 2010|By Ryan Bentley News-Review Staff Writer

Dick Moehl, president of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, describes his organization’s proposal for replicating Petoskey’s historic pier lighthouse to city parks and recreation commissioners Monday.

Petoskey’s parks and recreation commission has embraced the concept for re-creating a lighthouse which once stood along Petoskey’s breakwater.

During their Monday meeting, commissioners decided by a unanimous vote to back the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association’s proposal for installing a replica of the old light tower along the waterfront.

“In my mind, what we’re asking for here is some place ... where you think this could reside,” association president Dick Moehl said to commissioners.

In part, the Mackinaw City-based Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association has a mission of preserving and promoting lighthouses. It’s spearheading efforts to develop a replica of the light tower that stood along Petoskey’s pier in the early 20th century — until it was swept away in a 1924 windstorm. That structure, which measured about 42 feet in height, had a hexagonal, or pagoda-style, design.

The commission also decided in favor of scheduling a public hearing during a later city meeting to gather ideas on what specific site to use.

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To allow more seasonal residents to attend, city parks and recreation director Al Hansen said officials likely will wait until late May to conduct the hearing.

The Petoskey City Council will have final say as to whether a site on city property will be provided for the lighthouse, Hansen has said. Along with a site, Hansen noted that electricity and perhaps some minor maintenance could be furnished by the city for the light tower.

Sunset Park and a pier at the city marina are examples of sites Hansen has said potentially could be considered for the replica.

Hansen said he recently heard from an architect that the Sunset Park location — on a bluff overlooking the city’s harbor — might be better than the pier from a visual standpoint, since the lighthouse wouldn’t visually compete with other waterfront structures like the Bayfront Park clock tower if located in the park.

If a waterfront location is to be used, Hansen said officials may want to consider one west of the breakwater.

Moehl senses some potential for the replica light tower to serve as a tourist attraction. If the city agrees to cooperate on a site, he said his organization would then handle fundraising for the project.

The lighthouse group expects the project will cost about $160,000 — with Moehl noting that a projection of $225,000 to $250,000 that he’d previously cited was a miscalculation. The fundraising efforts likely would have a $300,000 goal, with Moehl noting that surplus dollars could be used in establishing an endowment for the light tower’s upkeep.

Initially, the lighthouse group had hoped the replica light tower could be installed at the outer tip of the breakwater — which is now marked by a shorter tower that’s more functional in appearance. But a few months ago, the U.S. Coast Guard rejected that proposal.

Since private interests were proposing the replica lighthouse project, Moehl said it would be considered a private aid to navigation — and Coast Guard regulations don’t allow private navigational aids to be installed on piers.

The current light tower at the outer end of the breakwater underwent refurbishment last year. If the lighthouse group had approached the Coast Guard a bit earlier — before plans for those updates were finalized — Moehl now believes the proposal to install the old lighthouse’s replica on the breakwater might have been better received.

One of five

According to the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, Petoskey’s former pier light was one of five pagoda-style light towers erected on breakwaters at Lake Michigan harbors between 1902 and 1912. Like Petoskey’s, the others — which were installed in the Wisconsin cities of Milwaukee, Kenosha, Sheboygan and Racine — no longer are standing.